Transformed
by xEmoxAxelx
Summary: After a long summer apart Axel and Xion are reunited. Xion is much different though than Axel remembers and she has a big secret to tell him. AU


We've been best friends since we were seven. We did everything together. We were everything to each other. We were each others first kiss, she was my first crush, my first real friend. Before I knew it though we grew apart. . . She changed. She started dressing like her cousin Sora, started hanging out with these kids from Twilight Town. Always talking about how she was going to go struggle against their town bully. Soon I hardly ever saw her. She seemed to be disappearing before my eyes. She traded our weekly movie nights for ice cream with Hayner, Pence, and Olette. Shopping trips with my sister Kairi for struggle fights with Seifer, Twilight Town's bully. She started ditching me for them and as I watched from afar I could see.

She had changed before my eyes, but the real change happened over the summer. I had to leave Hollow Bastion for the summer because I had a job lined up. Life guard. I'd be there until a week before my senior year. Xion and I chatted online and texted each other every other day but I felt even more separated from her then ever before. The day I came back Xion said she would be waiting for me in front of my house with a big surprise for me. It was more than a surprise...it was a huge shock. As I drove down the street I could see my house. Two story, pale green house with a wrap around deck. Flowers springing up all over the place thanks to my mom, a tire swing hanging from the willow tree in the front yard. Sitting on the tire swing was some kid with blonde golden hair. As I turned into the driveway the kid hopped off the tire and ran up to my car.

"Yo Axe!" I recognized the voice as Xion only a little deeper. She gave me a two finger salute and walked around to my side of the car.

"Xion!?"

"Yup." She smiled at me with her bright blue eyes. She looked so different. Her usual pale face was now tanned and glowing. Her short black hair was now bright blonde and sticking up in all different directions, like her cousin's hair. Her ears, which she normally wear long dangling earrings, were now gauged in only one ear and the other had closed completely. Her clothing had changed as well. She would normally wear something light red or blue with jeans. Now she was in a checkered hoodie with a dark maroon shirt. Baggy gray and tan cargo pants and some converse to top it all off.

"What happened to you!" I yelled. I got out of the car and she ran into my arms at full speed. "I mean look at you! You're hair it's blonde!" I played with her hair gently, it still felt the same. She stayed hugging me for a minute before pulling away and looking at me.

"Look at you mister macho man." She said smirking and hinting that I forgot to button my shirt up from the ride back. It was so hot and I have no air in my car. I had gained a lot of muscle over the summer. "Listen I want to talk to you about something...You're my best friend and I want you to know the truth." She looked down at the drive way and mumbled, "Please hear me out Axel..."

"Of course Xio." I slung a arm around her shoulders and lead her back to the tire swing. When we were little we would always have serious discussion on the tire swing. We used to be able to sit side by side on it. Now days though it's not really possible.

"Please don't call me that anymore." She sat on the swing and I started to push her gently.

"I've always called you Xio though. What else am I going to call you? Stupid face?" She laughed at the joke from our child hood.

"No dumb dumb." She giggled. "Call me...Roxas." I stopped her and spun her to face me.

"Why Roxas?"

"This is what I wanted to talk to you about..." I knelt down in front of her and took her small hand in mine.

"I'm all ears."

"You're always going to be my friend right Axel?"

"Of course. Friends forever remember?" I linked my pinkie with hers, noticing that she still wore the ring that I won at the fair for her when we were twelve.

"Do you remember me telling you when we were little that I thought I was a boy?"

"Yeah. I told you that was awesome and I wish you were a boy so I could have a guy best friend. Though you acted like a guy back then." I laughed and she stayed silent.

"I am a boy..." She looked me in the eye. Fear the only thing I could see in her bright blue eyes. Fear of rejection? Fear of hatred? I wasn't sure.

"What?"

"Inside," She placed a hand over her chest (which I noticed now was very flat). "I'm a boy Axel. . . I've always been a boy." She paused. "I'm transgender Axel." I sat there stunned. The girl that I had been friends with for almost all my life told me that she was a boy. Rather he was a boy. My Xion was gone. She had been replaced by this boy named Roxas. Xion had always been Roxas though, so did that mean that everything we'd done together...I'd been doing with a boy? So I've always liked a boy? Not a girl? "Axel say something. Please." She begged me, her eyes watering.

"What happened to make you realize this?"

"I've been hanging out with the kids from twilight town you know? Well Olette was telling me about her parents one day. She told me that her dad was Transgender. I asked her about it and she invited me to her place for the night. I met her dad and he explained to me."

"Want to explain it to me? I'm not really understanding all this Xio-...Roxas." She smiled that I remembered to call her Roxas.

"First off to set this straight, sex is between the legs-"

"I know that better than anyone." I wiggled my eyebrows at him and we both laughed.

"Any way," She said between giggles. "sex is between the legs and gender is between the ears. My sex is female but, I've always felt that my gender wasn't female. When I went there that night I talked with him and he told me that when he was a kid he never felt like he was a girl. He felt like a boy, always. He tried to convince himself that he was a girl but, it didn't work. He came to a realization when he was my age that he was a man.

"After about five years of getting comfortable enough with himself he started to work on becoming a real male. He met Olette's mom and they fell in love. He even told her that he was transgender and she said that she loved him just the same as when she first met him. About ten years after he realized that he was transgender...he had surgery."

"What type of surgery?"

"They cut off his breasts and...lower parts and gave him the parts of a man."

"Are you getting surgery!?"

"No! Not yet anyway. I'm too young...and other reasons." By this time the sun had set and it was getting chilly. "Can we go inside? It's getting cold...Up to your room like the old times?"

"Course." We went to up my room, after stopping by the kitchen first for snacks. "So what are the other reasons?" I asked setting the chips in the middle of the bed. Roxas took a seat on the end of the bed, me at the head. He grabbed a few chips and nibbled on them.

"The only people that know this is you, Hayner, Pence, Olette, and her dad."

"Aqua doesn't know?"

"No..."

"You need to tell Aqua."

"Why should I tell her?"

"Because she's important to you. Aqua's been there for you since you were seven! This is a big thing X- Roxas. She deserves the truth." He stood up and stormed over to the window.

"I can't tell her Axel."

"Why?"

"Because she won't look at me the same way!" I looked at my now blonde haired friend puzzled. "If I tell her that I'm a boy...I won't be the same to her. She's always seen me as her little sister. For the rest of my life I'm going to be her little sister...Even when I'm secretly a boy, I'll be her little sister. If I tell her, all she'll see is what used to be her little sister. She's going to think that her little Xion disappeared when really she never existed at all! She'll hate me because Roxas took Xion away! I don't want her to hate me or view me differently." He pulled his hood up and sat on the window sill, keeping his head down. He was crying. I walked over and pulled him into a hug.

"You can't live with this on your shoulders though Roxas. Aqua won't hate you... She loves you more than anyone else in the world. Just like you love her more than anyone else in the world."

"That's the other thing that I wanted to talk to you about..." He pulled out of my arms and walked back to the bed. Nibbling at his nails as he went. "I'm..."

"A boy. Next part." I laughed trying to ease the tension. Roxas said nothing, just continued to bite his nails. After a moment and a deep breath he spoke again.

"I'm...Gay..."

"Huh?"

"I like boys. Well a certain boy...I don't like girls. I think I'm in love with this guy Axel." A light blush fell upon his golden cheeks. I oohed and aahed. Poking his side gently to make him giggle.

"Details, give em up." I jumped onto the bed patted the spot beside me. He crawled up beside me and wiggled his way under my arm.

"I've known him for a long, long, long time. He's the only boy I've ever liked..." He played with his nails.

"Do I know him?"

"Very well."

"Does he go to our school?" I pressed.

"Yeah he does."

"What's his name?"

"Starts with an A..."

"Aaron!?"

"Hell no!" He said shoving me lightly.

"Um...Ansem is way out of the question right?"

"Mhm."

"Tell me! I'm to lazy to guess!" I started tickling him.

"No!" He said through his laughing. "You have to guess you cheater!" He rolled around on the bed trying to escaped but I pinned him to the bed.

"I can't think of anyone else though." I whined.

"Use your brain Axel." I let go and sat up from where I sat straddling his hips.

"Me?" She turned her gaze away from me and her face blushed bright crimson. "Is it me?"

"...M-maybe..." She said quietly. I smiled and kissed her forehead.

"I like you too Xion."

"What did you call me?"


End file.
